


Thick as Thieves

by steelneena



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Comedy!, F/M, Nealfire exchange day!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:23:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6569767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina didn't like sharing. Anything, much less her son. She grown used to sharing him with Miss. Swan, but now she has to share him with the Son of Rumplestiltskin. The Evil Queen always gets what she wants. Or does she? <br/>In which Regina realizes that Neal is a pretty okay guy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thick as Thieves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneeyecarl.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=oneeyecarl.tumblr.com).



> PROMPT 1: (Neal never having died) Regina has to learn to accept him into their family. There’s more than meets the eye to Henry’s father. (It’d be cool to see a comparison between Robin Hood and Neal, both being thieves but very selfless and heroic people despite it.)
> 
> Include characters as needed to suit the story. I ship Swanfire and Outlaw Queen, I love Emma and Regina friendship. Snarky Regina is a definite favorite of me.

 

Regina had never really thought much about what Neal meant to the little family dynamic that she and Emma had somehow worked out in the time since she'd become a permanent fixture in Henry's life. Now, returned from the Enchanted Forest, Emma and Henry's memories restored and Neal back from his strange side-trip of sharing a life-force with his father, Regina found herself having to confront the fact that her dual parenting had somewhere along the line become a three way parenting endeavour.

 

Neal Cassidy, Baelfire, the Son of Rumpelstiltskin, was here to stay.

 

Interestingly enough, it was actually a passing comment made by Robin that prompted her into thinking about it.

 

"Isn't it Neal's week, Regina?" He'd mentioned when she'd proposed an outing with Henry and Roland.

 

Of course. Neal had a  _ week _ now.

 

Intellectually, Regina knew that she shouldn't, and didn't, have any reason to react the way she was, but having the realization completely blindside her was a bit more than she was capable of handling at the moment. Neal had been around in Storybrooke at most a month before the entire Pan debacle and then it was all over anyways and she was never going to see Henry again because she'd gone and done the right thing and given him up to reverse the curse.  So there was never time for it to sink in that Neal had a week.

 

Emma had a week, Neal and a week and she had a week.

 

Great.

 

Regina stalked down the sidewalk, fuming, lips pursed tightly. She wasn't mad at Neal, but, in the moment, the surprise sure made it feel like she was and Regina needed something or someone to take it out on. Robin had no idea what he'd begun, of course, and Regina, ever meaning well, intended that he'd never know. Somewhere in the strange and convoluted history of their people, he and Henry's father had become decent friends, and she couldn't, wouldn't, pain Robin in that way.

 

The former Evil Queen rounded the corner and found herself headed towards Granny's. 

 

Realistically, she had absolutely no idea where to find the object of her ire, but that hadn't registered. If she wanted to find someone, and that someone had no idea what he was in for, he was most likely going to be found in a small handful of locations, and Granny's was the top of the list.

 

"Hello, Mr. Cassidy," She sneered down at him where he sat in the booth, unobtrusively working over a piece of pumpkin pie and a black coffee. Comically, he looked up at her, halfway between perturbed and apathetic.

 

"Regina. Something wrong?"

 

Equally comically, Regina opened her mouth to speak and found that all of her angry ranting thoughts had fled her mind, and left her with absolutely no reply to the calmly posed question. Neal, much to her humiliation, was actually beginning to look concerned.

 

"Do you need to sit down?"

 

He was just so goddamned  _ nice _ .

 

Regaining her composure, Regina took his offer and sat across from him, primly, trying to maintain her poise.

 

"Neal," She began again, making an effort. "This morning I was...well Robin mentioned something to me, about this being your week with Henry," She began, pausing to gauge his response.

 

"Right," He nodded, putting down his fork, leaving the pie for the moment. "I was kind of wondering if you were going to talk with me about that. Is the arrangement all right? Emma didn't say if she'd talked it over with you, and I can't say that I thought about it myself at the time. Henry didn't mention anything, but then, he's a teenager, so I don't expect too much. He's already a damn sight better than most of them these days though," Emma's ex-lover rambled on, and Regina found herself nodding in tandem with his logical, calmly rationalized and reasonable discourse.

 

"Anyways, if you'd rather switch it out, you just need to let me know. We haven't really had an opportunity to test any sort of...well, schedule really, and what with all the weird shit that happens around here daily, it's almost impossible to make plans in advance. I know it's new, and we're going to have to adjust some things at first, work everything out, especially now that I'm here to stay,"

 

"That's...exactly what I was hoping you would say. We agree very firmly on those points,"

"Great. So, you're all right with this being my week then? Or did you have plans with Henry?" He had an even, honest gaze, unchallenging, simply serious. Regina fell in love, just a little bit, before she shook herself out of it.  Henry's father reminded her vaguely of Robin, and she wondered if that was the basis for their mutual camaraderie, or if there was more to the story. Her own lover had implied that he'd met Neal on some other prior venture, though Robin had not expounded upon the fact.

 

No, Neal Cassidy was not there to take Henry from her. He wasn't there to impinge upon her time with her son, and nor was he there to replace her. Neal was there because he loved Henry, just the same as she, and Emma, did. Regina smiled.

 

"I don't have any issues with this being your week. Just make sure that Emma remembers that with you added into the rotation, next week won't be hers, it'll be mine. This will take some getting used to, you're right, but it's nothing I-we can't handle," Regina concluded, inclining her head slightly in deference to his role in parenting their shared son.

 

Curiously, Neal smiled, almost huffing a breathy laugh, but hiding it behind his coffee mug.

 

"What?"

 

"You came here to bite my head off, didn't you?" He asked, suddenly leaning back, grinning widely.

 

"I-"

 

"It's okay. Seriously,"

 

Regina took him at his word.

 

* * *

 

One thing after another came up and eventually, Regina forgot that she was going to ask Robin how he and Neal had met. The thought became largely irrelevant in the face of all the ‘weird shit’ that went down, if she were going to quite her son’s father. Which she totally wasn’t. But in between every chaotic debacle there was a lull. And lulls were used to spend good, quality time with family.

 

Not.

 

Regina was in a huff again, much to Robin’s endless chagrin. This she knew, but it was a mild irritant. You could take the evil out of the queen, but you’d never take the queen out of the woman.

 

“Do we have to do this?” She asked, exasperated.

 

“I think it’s a good idea,” Robin answered calmly, offering no other words on the matter.

Neal had invited them to dinner. A  _ family _ dinner.  Neal himself would be there, and Emma, with Henry. Regina, Robin and Roland were also invited along because “You’re basically married, right?” That had been Emma talking of course, insensitive and blunt as she tended to be.

Family dinner. Four parents, two kids and no small amount of uncomfortable past history and emotions between them. Neal and Emma weren’t quite okay with one another yet, and Regina wasn’t sure that she and Emma would ever be the best of friends. At least Regina knew she wouldn’t have to worry about Robin and Neal. The two of them would most likely be easy going and collected. The former Evil Queen almost rolled her eyes.

 

_ Men. _

 

“Hi there, Regina,” Neal greeted as she, Robin and Roland walked forward. “Glad you could make it,”

 

“Hey Mom!” Henry called, carrying a plate. “Take a seat! I’ll get your food for you,”

 

Regina narrowed her eyes, suspicious.

 

“Is Henry-“

 

“He’s not in trouble. Just helping out like the grown up fourteen year old that he is,” There was a peculiar quality to Neal’s words and a glint in his eye that spoke of great intelligence. Emma brushed past in that moment, near to him, Regina noted, but not quite touching.

 

“What Neal’s trying to say is that Henry said he was basically an adult, and Neal told him that if he was an adult, he could help out a bit more and prove it,” Emma smiled wanly. “And now he’s a regular little house elf,”

 

“Hey don’t call me a slaver-I didn’t put him to work, he did it voluntarily!” Her former flame stated defensively.

 

“I don’t know what a house elf is, and I don’t think I ever want to know. Let’s just get this over with,” Regina put her things down and entered, pointedly ignoring the friendly greeting shared between Neal and Robin.

 

This was going to be a long, long night.

 

* * *

 

Henry and Roland were in the family room, playing Candy Land of all things, when the kitchen was finally finished being cleaned up. Settled on the barstools were Robin and Emma, while Neal finished wiping up the countertop. Regina stood by the fridge, unsure of what to do with herself since she’d finished with the food.

 

Moments later, a glass was shoved in her hand, and three more were on the counter.

 

“C’mon, join us for a drink, Regina,” Neal waved his hand to call her over to them.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Just an old fashioned. Nothing too fancy,”

 

Chitchat continued on aimlessly for a while, mostly provided by the men while the women sat and brooded. How uncommonly dull, Regina found herself thinking until…

 

“Yeah, I never thought that I’d find Robin Hood living in my Dad’s old castle but that’s life in the Enchanted Forest for you. And you know what they say about thieves, right?”

 

“We’re very thick?” Robin asked, almost grasping the Land Without Magic colloquialism.

 

“Yeah, you’ve got it. Thick as thieves, right Em?” The blonde woman stiffened and immediately. Neal seemed to have registered his mistake, but, through some odd, misplaced sense of kinship, Regina chose that moment to speak.

 

“So Robin never did tell me how the two of you became friends? Care to enlighten me?”

 

“Of course, Regina!” And Robin set out to tell the tale, falling back into his old world tendencies and intonations of speech. It was almost adorable, and Regina knew she was smiling.

 

The night came to a close quite late, with Roland and Henry both asleep on the couch and the parents much exhausted from the exertion of talking.

 

Emma and Robin went to the boys, leaving Neal alone with Regina who was gathering hers and Robin’s things.

 

“Regina,” Neal approached her, hesitant. “I just wanted to thank you…for earlier. I-“

 

“No need,” Her tone was genuine, but serious, and without any hint of brusqueness. “I know how hard it can be to be… _ reformed, _ ”

 

The man gave a halfhearted smile, but his eyes were sad.

 

“How do you atone?” He asked.

 

“A little bit every day. I just think of what I have to be thankful for, and I let it guide me. I learned that the hard way,” Her eyes drifted through the doorway to watch her son, her lover and his boy. Neal’s followed suit, resting on Henry and then on Emma.

 

Yes, Regina thought. She had far more in common with Neal Cassidy than she had ever realized.

 


End file.
